


Facades

by Altair_Gavin



Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Comfort/Angst, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, more angst than comfort tho, so much pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-19 01:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15499260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Altair_Gavin/pseuds/Altair_Gavin
Summary: “Whatever do you mean, Primrose? I get the glory of being Cyrus’s babysitter, you should be apologizing to Olberic and Tressa for something so predictable.” Therion’s voice drips with sarcasm.- - - -In which a seemingly simple attempt to gain some information where Therion poses as Cyrus's escort results in the act needing to last far longer than expected.





	Facades

**Author's Note:**

> This wonderful story will be the polar opposite from my other wip, Bean Juice, so if you're here for fluff and fun traveler bonding and silly slip ups, run as far away from this fic as possible! :)
> 
> I couldn't find official tags for some of the things that might show much later on, but nothing will be any darker than anything that happens in the game itself. I'll post warnings at the beginning of each chapter if necessary, but this first one is just building up the context as needed
> 
> I see this as taking place before any of the chapter threes, if you read this and wonder what sort of events are fresh on the minds of the travelers, but won't contain any spoilers as far as I can see (if this changes, I'll let you know at the beginning of the chapter and which part of the game the spoilers refer to and where they are in the work itself)
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy <3

“As you all might have heard, Alfyn and Cyrus were able to pick up rumours about the town ahead of one bearing the mark of the crow,” Primrose announced around their campsite once all eight had settled into the morning. “After hearing the details, I would ask for your help once again.”

“There’s no need to ask, Prim, just say the word and we’ve got your back. Right, guys?” Alfyn looks around their loose circle with a grin. 

“Yeah, you’re one of us! Besides, you’ve helped out all of us when you could have been searching for them, so this is the least we can do to pay you back,” Tressa affirms.

The dancer offers a small smile. “Are there any objections to these statements?”

“Just tell us what you need already.” Therion pushes himself off from the tree he was leaning under to join the rest of the group. 

“Very well then. The local tavern seems to be the base of operations for some powerful organization of sorts in town, and is our first stop. While normally it would do fine for us to simply go in and have the more. . . charismatic of us do the talking, this place runs a little differently.

“As there are many in town who prefer rogue courses of action to make their coin, they’re fairly paranoid and unkind to outsiders, and I’m afraid our little band sticks out like a sore thumb when we arrive in small towns like this,” she explains.

They all wordlessly spare a glance around each other and silently agree, remembering how they took up the entirety of the inn at the last town they visited and got stares everywhere they went.

Primrose continues. “So, we will be entering town in smaller groups and maintaining facades to keep them at ease and leave them more suggestible. Since I had a feeling that you all would insist on coming along, I’ve already decided your groups.

“Alfyn and Tressa will enter first, posing as a pair of merchants. Ophilia, Olberic, and H’aanit will follow as three wandering Knights of Ardante, and Cyrus will pose as a noble and Therion his escort,” she outlines. “You are to keep your heads low and your ears sharp. Don’t let them catch on to the fact that you know one another. I will be working alone, as I do best in situations like these. However, it is a comfort to know there are those who have my back.”

“Sounds pretty simple.” Tressa shrugs. “I actually am a merchant, after all.”

“Where shall we obtaineth the uniforms that the Knights wearen?” H’aanit asks. 

“She had me lift ‘em a few towns back,” Therion says. “Didn’t say what for, but it was an easy enough job so I didn’t bother asking.”

“It’s strange that the knights were such easy targets,” Ophilia frowns. “They’re known the realm over for their diligence.”

The thief smirks. “Easy enough for me, in any case. The better question is what she plans to put me in to make me look worth paying for.”

“It is true that thou doth often looke as if thou hath rolled along the road rather than if thou hath walked.” The huntress nods. 

“You’re a natural comedian, H’aanit.” Therion rolls his eyes. “Should I just wear the dancer garb?”

“It would do you some good to clean up a little, maybe keep you hair out of your eyes. If the people in town are half as sharp as the rumors say, the tiniest smudge in the wrong place might give us away.” Primrose’s words may have come across as a suggestion if it weren’t for the way she raked his appearance with a critical eye. “Wash up in the stream we passed on our way. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to be thorough, make sure to get behind your ears.”

“Sure, mom.” The white haired man gave a two fingered salute and heads in the direction of the little body of water. 

He doesn’t really see the point of keeping clean day to day. After all, he’d just pick back all the grime sooner or later, and he’s hardly had anyone to impress. Every now and again for a job he’d freshen up if it called for him to get to know the mark in a more. . . intimate fashion, but he rarely had to resort to those kinds of tactics, however familiar he may be with them.

He’s stripped his torso bare and is trying to work through some stubborn snags in his hair with the help of the water when he feels a presence on the banks behind him. Too small to be any of the other men, too loud for H’aanit, and far too quiet for Tressa. And quite frankly, he couldn’t picture Ophilia following him knowing that he planned to bathe.

“Here to make sure I remember how to wash?” he asks, not turning his focus from the tangle trapping his nimble fingers.

“That’s a small part of it, I suppose,” the dancer admits. “I wanted to talk with you about your role in all this. I wouldn’t be surprised if you found it beneath you.”

“Whatever do you mean, Primrose? I get the glory of being Cyrus’s babysitter, you should be apologizing to Olberic and Tressa for something so predictable.” Therion’s voice drips with sarcasm.

“It’s not something I could ask just anyone to do. The rest have too much to worry about with their own parts to play to worry about keeping him from exposing us.” Therion hears some shifting and assumes she’s taken a seat. “Come over here, I have some salve to work into that mess to keep it in order.”

Therion straightens out and makes his way over to her. He holds out his hand for the balm, and when she makes no move to hand it over, he raises an eyebrow. “Are you going to give it to me or what?”

The dancer gestures to the raised, exposed tree root she rest on, elevated above the rocky bank. “Sit. I’ll put it in. I’ll make quicker work of those knots since I don’t think I could stand to see you waste all day trying on your own.”

“Why do I feel like this is a way to trap me into a conversation I don’t want to have?” he says with a sigh as he does as she says regardless. 

“And you still let yourself be trapped nonetheless. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were starting to trust me.” Primrose starts working thin, delicate fingers through the snowy white strands, eliminating strands as if they were hardly there in the first place. “I never thought I’d see the day where Therion, the master thief himself, would turn his exposed back to let someone take care of his hair. I could dispose of you quite easily from here.”

His shoulders tense. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t follow me all the way out here to try to tell that sorry excuse for a joke.”

Her motions pause, but barely for a millisecond. “I feel I ought to apologize for putting you in such a situation. You’re hardly subtle, and I didn’t want you to think that framing things this way was a poor attempt at entertainment.”

“I get it. You already said that I was the best for the job of keeping our most oblivious and excitable member from blowing it for the rest of us. I said I was going to help you, and I wouldn’t back out over something so petty as that,” Therion says. “If this was for just about anything else, I would have already told you where you could shove your plans. But it makes sense, so I’ll suck it up. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“I never doubted your capabilities, Therion. You’re done far too well and lived far too long in your line of work for me to have a right to. However, every now and then I find myself wondering if you’re really as cold and controlled as you’d like us to think,” Primrose says. “I know what it’s like to have to keep up barriers, walls so high you can barely see the sky above. To have to hide anything that might be used against you, even if it’s so much as a cough or a smile. I still have some, even now. But know that there are some people worth letting through, even if only one in a lifetime.”

Her hands had long stopped their work, but Therion feels a strange pressure in his head, in his chest nonetheless. “Are you done?”

“Yes, be sure to rinse the salve out before too long. And I’d like to take care of your hair once you’re finished, back at camp.” She stands and dusts herself off, leaving the thief alone so he could finally let a little bit show through, even if he furiously wiped it from his face soon after.

He finds a scrap of comfort in the fact that the facade will only have to last a few hours at most.


End file.
